


that much further west

by who_won_the_race_back_home



Series: she said we're doing pretty good if we can just get out alive [5]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M, Trans Male Character, historically accurate transsexuals, the Pony Express, the gang goes back to the old west
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-16 18:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14816684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/who_won_the_race_back_home/pseuds/who_won_the_race_back_home
Summary: The team heads back to the old west to cause a mild amount of trouble, and Rip meets a kid who's maybe more than a little like him while visiting a Pony Express station.





	that much further west

**Author's Note:**

> This fic nearly killed me. It took me, like, six months to finish, having scrapped half of it, and trying three different plots, and getting stuck for weeks at a time. But finally, it is done. I hope you like it, but at this point, I don't even care anymore.
> 
> Title from the Lucero song of the same name.

Rip rolled over in bed to press up against Sara’s back and sling an arm around her middle, but only found a slightly warm dip where her body had been and a pile of sleep clothes near his feet. Sara was always an early riser, never really getting the League’s routine out of her system, and it had ended up complimenting his own bizarre circadian rhythms rather well, but this hour was absurd even for her.

Then he realized, they were going back to the old west.

Letting the team pick an era to travel to was a mistake. It was like trying to keep kids in bed on Christmas morning past 6 AM. He had never managed it with Jonas, it was foolish of him to think it would it work with a bunch of fully grown, barely functional adults.

He had offered it as a well deserved respite after Vandal Savage, losing Snart, Kendra’s departure. It was one of the very few things he could offer. And of course, they had chosen the old west, but Rip insisted they go somewhere other than Salvation. Giving Jonah some breathing room was probably for the best.

So he decided on Nevada in 1861. The kids could cause whatever chaos in town, god help those poor people, and he could finally meet a Pony Express rider, to cross that particular wish off of his list.

After getting dressed, Rip went to go find Sara. It didn’t take long, she was waitingin the kitchen, already in her cowboy getup, drinking coffee from a tin mug that Rip knew she had Gideon fabricate specifically for her outlaw aesthetic. Feet kicked up on the table, Sara looked handsome in rough denim pants and a button up, long jacket slung over the back of her chair, gun holster around her thigh. It was rugged in a way Rip always found incredibly attractive in a person.

“Morning captain! I mean, partner,” Ray said, pointing a finger gun at him.

“You both realize we’re not going to the OK Corral, right?” Rip gestured towards the both of them. “Westward expansion took place over decades, they didn’t all dress like bandits from some John Wayne movie.”

“C’mon Rip, are a bunch of dudes delivering the mail and putting up telephone poles really going to care what we’re wearing?” Sara said. “Besides, you look lame.”

His outfit was nearly identical to hers, minus the jacket and hat, his being more broad and floppy.

“Telegraph. And-“Rip motioned down at himself. “We’re wearing basically the same thing.”

“That’s gay,” Sara said, taking a sip from her coffee, a wry smile poking past the edges of the cup. “My hat’s cooler.”

“You are...”

“Hmmm?” She cocked her head. “What?”

“Just–finish up and meet on the bridge, so I can take you all on this bad idea I convinced myself to follow through on.”

Sara offered Rip a very sarcastic two finger salute that he rolled his eyes and sighed at. As he turned to head towards the bridge he heard Sara make a kissing noise at him, which, despite his best efforts, made him crack a smile. Not that he’d ever let her know that.

“Hey, what about my outfit?” Ray called after him.

* * *

One of the nice things about the American west was the vast amount of space to park the Waverider inconspicuously. Rip landed the ship deep in scrub brush, with no sign of life for a least a mile. He started in the direction of town, but after a few feet, he didn’t hear the crunch of footsteps behind him. One of them had uncloaked the ship, and the team stood clustered in its shade.

“You’re making us walk all the way there?” Jax yelled to Rip, fanning himself with his hat. “We can’t, like, fabricate some horses or whatever? Or park closer?” He gestured out at the seemingly endless nothing around them.

“There are workers all over out here, plus native American tribes nearby. Any closer would be a risk of revealing ourselves and creating a bigger mess to cleanup than whatever you lot will inevitably do in town.” Rip tied a muted blue bandana around his neck to block the sun and pulled the low, limp brim of his hat further down his brow “Besides, if any of you ever listened to me, you would’ve picked more practical, seasonal and era appropriate outfits”

“Don’t be smug, Rip. It’s unbecoming,” Sara said.

She had already shed her heavy coat, dropping it right by the ship’s door, even though she could have easily tossed it into the cargo bay. Stein loosened his tie and even undid his top button. Only Mick seemed unbothered by the dry heat and whipping wind. He took a long pull from a flask and squinted out at the desert with a faint smile.

“I like the heat,” he said with a shrug, after odd looks from everyone else.

It was a long walk in the hot sun, two miles of dust and cloudless skies, and even Rip’s practicality was not enough to keep him from sweating straight through his shirtsleeves. Even Ray joined in the chorus of complaints after tripping over a tumbleweed. Once they reached town, Sara grabbed Jax by the arm and barely made the effort to yell over her shoulder that they were checking out the saloon. Mick followed a few paces behind in their wake, shaking out his empty flask, hoping for a few final drops.

“Dr. Palmer, would you-“

“Oh, no problem. I’ll keep him out of trouble,” Ray said, before jogging off to catch up to Mick. A slap on Mick’s shoulder nearly got Ray a fist to his face, but he happily backed off, and Rip could hear his one sided conversation trail off.

“Well then Martin, would you like to join me in investigating the Pony Express station?” Rip asked.

Stein’s eyes lit up in the way they did when he learned another miracle of 22nd century technology.

"When I was a boy, my father gave me a book about the Pony Express, and even at that age I was fascinated by the infrastructural wonder it was. It is staggering what they were able to accomplish in such a short time,” he said.

Rip chuckled at the image of young Stein being amazed at logistics rather than the adventure of cowboys riding the open plains and led him towards where the station was supposed to be.

“Although, accumulating that much debt, I’m sure we all could accomplish great things with that amount of money,” Stein added.

That earned a laugh from Rip. He hadn’t had the chance to spend much time with Stein, but his fascination and intellect combined with 65 years of experience had given him a wry outlook on life that Rip appreciated.

They came upon a low slung, one room building with a small stable attached. A saddled horse lazily ate feed and huffed at them as they walked by, unimpressed. Just as they got to the door, a man charged past on horseback, stopping fast at the stable. He dismounted, pulled the mail sacks off and sprinted to the next horse, tossing the bags over the new saddle and throwing himself onto the animal. In seconds he was racing off west again.

“Not even a stop to say hello,” said a voice behind them.

Rip turned and came face to face with a boy who seemed barely older than 16. He was slight, likely not much taller than Sara, even in boots, and his face had clearly never seen need to meet a razor. Even through a well tailored coat and buttoned up shirt, Rip could tell he bound his chest. He caught Rip’s eyeline and quickly rushed past to bring the abandoned horse into the stable.

"Isn't the point that you gentlemen aren't stopping to say hello?" Stein said.

The boy eyed them both suspiciously while getting the horse in front of a feed bucket. "You two with the company? Checking to make sure we aren't slacking on the job?"

Rip interrupted the beginning of what was sure to be one of Martin’s unnecessarily elaborate lies. “In a manner of speaking. We’re postal inspectors,” Rip said. “I’m Inspector Hunter and this is my colleague, Inspector Stein.”

“Postal inspectors? That’s a new one. Got a couple sacks of mail in the main room I’m about to run east, if you want to inspect that,” the boy said, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

“Well with the war, it’s important that sensitive information isn’t being passed unscrupulously,” Rip said, removing his hat. “May we speak somewhere perhaps out of earshot of passerby.” He was being perhaps a bit conspiratorial as he nodded his head towards the street right outside the open stable.

The boy huffed out a laugh. “Sure. I gotta saddle up anyway.”

Stein let himself into the station to poke around while the boy led Rip to the back corner stall of the stable, where a strong looking brown mustang waited. It took a bit wrestling to get him away from his feed, but with enough coaxing, he was led over to an impressive rack of riding equipment, easily the nicest part of the whole operation.

“Now, Mr.-“ Rip started.

“Oh sorry, forgot to introduce myself,” the boy said, wiping his hands on his trousers and extending one to shake. “Jim Reynolds.”

“Mr. Reynolds.” Rip took his hand. Jim’s grip was firm, on the verge of trying to be impressive. “This all must be exciting work.”

“Can be, mostly dead boring and exhausting, though,” Jim said as he rummaged for a saddle blanket. “I’ll be riding straight through to probably damn near midnight, get a few hours rest, then get started back before the sun rises. Now, what is it you wanted to talk about?”

“That’s quite the shift,” Rip said,   

Jim grunted a sound of agreement and started working on the saddle’s various buckles. “Yeah, well, pay’s decent enough and I get to ride for a living. Could be worse. Could be back home.”

“And where is that?”

“Independence, Missouri. Family’s in the outfitting trade, gettin’ the brave, the young, and the downright stupid all set up to live in this splendor,” Jim said with a laugh, spreading his arms wide to gesture at the desert.

Rip laughed with him. He really liked this kid. If he has learned anything over his many years, a wry sense of humor made the hardship a little easier to bear.

“I’m surprised your family let you. Not often they let their boys go off if there’s a business to be run,” Rip said.

“Yeah, well the migrating season only lasts so long, and the slow parts of the year can be rough. Work was hard to find around town.” Jim was vague in his tone. Rip understood immediately. It was hard to find well paying work as a woman in this era, especially if he wanted to use his horsemanship. “I heard that this venture was looking to hire. They didn’t want to take me at first, didn’t want to be liable to my family if something happened to me. They were preferring orphans, but they saw how well I could ride, and were having a tough time finding men of a smaller stature, and put me all the way out here.”

Adjusting the final buckles on the saddle, Jim patted the horse’s flank and began leading him back towards the crude dirt street in front of the station. Just as he went in to grab the pouches of mail Stein had been thoroughly thumbing through, a rider came rushing from the west. Again, in what felt like seconds, Jim had taken the pouches from the newly arrived rider and threw them over his saddle, jumping on after them in one fluid motion.

"Apologies, but Bob is my cue to head off. He might be able to help with whatever else it was you were looking for,” Jim said, tipping his hat at Rip and Stein. “Sorry we never got to it.”

Rip waved as Jim raced off without a look back. As he turned back towards the station, Stein was already deep in conversation with the tired and confused looking man who had just finished his ride, while Stein was lit up like a child at the circus.

But then, timed so perfect Rip should’ve set his watch to it, he heard a loud bang coming from down near the saloon. Not thirty seconds later, Ray and Jax ran pastpractically dragging Mick along with them. Sara sauntered not too far behind, pistol in one hand and whiskey bottle in the other. The dull roar of an angry mob sounded like it was approaching quickly.

“Right, of course,” Rip said to himself. “Martin! We unfortunately have to take our leave.”

* * *

“Bob Haslam! Pony Bob himself. How incredible!”

Stein paced around the bridge of the ship, still in his old west outfit, explaining the legacy of Bob Haslam, the greatest rider the Pony Express ever saw, to Ray, who to his credit, seemed genuinely interested.

Miraculously, they had avoided confrontation with nearly every angry drunkard in town, despite the team’s best efforts. After running a half mile into the desert, the mob had given up, probably figuring the tumbleweeds and coyotes would take care of them.

Sara and Jax were telling Rip how they had ended up in that predicament to begin with, Mick grunting his approval as he shared a bottle of whiskey with them. Something involving an an arm wrestling bet gone wrong and Mick insulting the pride of more than a few ornery ranchers.

However, Rip had stopped paying attention. His thoughts had drifted back to Jim, a young man in a dangerous position out by himself in the desert. Years ago, when he had first made his way out west, Jonah had introduced Rip to some men who occasionally worked with him. More than one had been like Rip, trans, or something like it. 

It had been jarring at the time, to see himself so clearly reflected in an era so long before his own. Although he knew that trans people had existed all throughout time, he had never knowingly encountered it in his travels until then. It had been heartening.

But these years later, after losing so much, he felt a protective urge towards Jim, one that surprised him, and made him feel more than a bit patronizing. Jim wasn’t his responsibility, and he clearly was capable of taking care of himself.

“Dude, earth to Rip.” Jax waved a hand in front of Rip’s face. “You even here, man?”

“Rip.” There was a tap on Rip’s shin, Sara kicking him from where she sat, across the steps to his office. It finally got him to snap out of his fog. “You’re spacing,” she said, kindly, in the way she always did when he got like this.

“Sorry,” Rip said, blinking his way back into the moment. “Yes, it is certainly impressive how quickly you all managed to get us run out of town.”

Mick cracked a chuckle. “Nah, English, you should see me try.”

“I fear the day, Mr. Rory.”

Rip excused himself to his quarters for the night, a quick awkward nod, and a small smile for Sara. He slumped in a chair without even bothering to close the door to his room or shuck his leather jacket. Unfortunately, he had left his scotch back in his office, and the fabricator in the kitchen felt too far away to make the effort. So he sat, too sober, trying to keep his mind from spiraling away from him again.

“What’s up?” Sara said, leaned up against the doorframe. “You’re being that sad kind of weird you do.”

“Hmmm? Oh, no, it’s noth-“

A quirk of Sara’s eyebrow stopped him before he could finish his half-hearted lie. He should have known better by this point, not that his tells were particularly hard to decipher.

Rip let out a sigh. “While you were out trying to get yourself killed, Martin and I visited the Pony Express station. There was a young man working there, Jim. I think he was, is, like me.”

“What? A humorless British time master from the distant future?” Sara said with a grin, sitting on the arm of Rip’s chair and swinging her legs to rest in his lap.

“You know what I mean.” Rip draped an arm over her thighs, ran his fingers over the denim.

“What makes you think he’s trans?”

“I–I just can tell. Or maybe he’s just trying to pass so he could get work. But I don’t know, I just have a feeling it’s more than that.” Rip scratched absentmindedly at his beard, a less destructive nervous habit he had developed over the years. Sara stopped him, taking his hand, making him focus.

“It was just more common than people assume during this era,” Rip said, quietly.

“Huh. That makes sense,” Sara said. “But okay then, what’s wrong? Why are you getting all weird about it?”

And that was the problem. Rip couldn’t figure out how to articulate this protective urge, almost paternal, or something that felt closer to it than anything since Jonas was killed. 

“When you met Lindsey in 1958, did you get that feeling of wanting to take her with you? Just because you knew it would better for her than staying in that town?”

Sara paused a moment, thinking. “Yeah, I guess. She deserved better than that shithole. But I don’t try to think about it too much. Isn’t helpful to anyone, least of all her.”

“But that’s it. That’s how I’m feeling about Jim. He’s out there alone. If he’s found out, he could get killed. The Express shuts down only a few months from now, he’ll be out on his own in the Nevada desert, probably sentenced to a life of low paying cowboy work, or worse, he’d have to return home, and be a person he isn’t.”

Rip dropped his head against the back of the chair, eyes screwed tight. Without a word, Sara began running a hand through his hair. The tension Rip had been holding in his shoulders for hours finally eased a bit, and he took a breath.

“It just never gets to me like this,” he said, finally. “It was supposed to be trained out of us at the academy. Compassion, empathy.”

“I mean, if anyone here gets that, it’s me. You saw me after I went back to the League. They destroy just about every ounce of mercy left in a person.” Sara stopped the hand in Rip’s hair, getting him to open his eyes. “But you aren’t a heartless assassin, and this shit is always harder when it’s personal. You’re just human, Rip. Something like this was bound to get to you eventually.”

“But what the hell am I supposed to do with it?

“You’re the captain. Do whatever the fuck you want. Maybe we can’t take him with us, but you wanna go back and talk to the kid? Go. There’s no Time Masters to stop you.”

“But what if it alters the timeline? I don’t want to make things worse for him.”

Sara grabbed Rip gently by the chin, making him look at her. “If you’re that worried about it, have Gideon scan the records for his name. But I doubt having a conversation with him is going to completely alter the course of history.”

Rip paused moment, realizing that he couldn’t really logic himself out of that one. “I don’t like when you’re right.”

“Of course you do, I make you fun,” Sara said with finger guns and an attempt at a wink. “Plus, this means we can all go hang out in town again.”

“Absolutely not. Bad enough they tried to kill you all once.”

“Pfft, what’s a bunch of drunk cowboys with guns gonna do?”

“Shoot you! They will shoot you,” Rip said as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Eh, wouldn’t be the first time.”

Rip buried his head in Sara’s side with a groan and felt the rumble of her laughter against his cheek.

“Gross.” Jax pulled a face of exaggerated disgust as he walked by Rip’s open door on the way to his bunk.

“Shut up, Jax.” Sara jumped up and darted out to the hall to knock Jax upside the head, but he spun and dodged, sticking his tongue out as he continued past. Petulantly, she stuck her middle finger out and came back to plop unceremoniously in Rip’s lap, the echo of Jax’s laugh following him down the hall.

“You two are like children,” Rip said.

“He clearly started it.” Sara smiled and tugged gently at the front of Rip’s shirt to bring him in for a kiss.

* * *

It took several assurances from Gideon, but by the next morning Rip was certain that Jim had no real impact on the timeline, for good or for ill. From what records Gideon found, he continued to live under the name Jim Reynolds for the rest of his life, working as a ranch hand throughout the Southwest after the collapse of the Pony Express, eventually inheriting a very small operation in Texas from an employer who took a liking to him. He died a few years later when a horse he was breaking kicked him in the head. The death caused a mild stir, local man turns out to be not a man at all kind of rubbish, but still nothing worth more than a couple inches in the town bulletin.

It was not an easy life, but it also did not appear to be full of suffering or the pain of being found out. Jim was, by all historical accounts, completely unremarkable.

Which was enough to convince Rip that maybe it was all right if things went a little better.

They waited until the next afternoon to venture into town, when Jim would be back from his route, and, Rip hoped, the towns folk would already be too drunk to remember the ruffians they had chased after the day before. Sara decided to tag along with him instead of making trouble, something she called a noble sacrifice. Rip was just thankful that they would potentially make it through the day alive. Stein was none too pleased to be sent off with the rest of the team to chaperone, even with Ray’s promise of talking to some men working on building the transcontinental telegraph line.

Coming up on the station again, Sara huffed and pulled a face. “Y’know, seems like a real inefficient operation. What, hundreds of men and horses just to get a love letter across the country a little faster?”

“Exponentially faster,” Rip said. “These men could get the mail from Missouri to Sacramento in ten days. Before this, it took a horse and buggy more than three weeks. And it was far too expensive for love letters, mostly business correspondence and news.”

“Boring.” Sara pointed at the telegraph poles in the distance. “And then that thing fucks it all up?”

“Fucks up this? Yes,” Rip said, gesturing towards the building. “But imagine that kind of technological leap. You can get a message from New York to California in seconds.”

“You’re from the literal future. You could’ve probably sent a text message with your mind or something.”

“The technology wasn’t as intuitive as you think. I never really liked using it,” Rip said flatly.

“Wait, could you really–“

Rip gave Sara a wink. It took a moment to register, but she soon broke into a self deprecating grin and gave him a punch to the shoulder and followed him inside.

The building was empty, save for some mail sacks and a half eaten plate of food sitting on the iron stove. A clanging sound rang from outside, and Rip followed it to the stable, where Jim was bent over a horse’s hoof, nailing on a horseshoe.

“Mr. Reynolds, hello,” Rip greeted.

Jim startled, nearly dropping his hammer and giving Rip a confused look. “I wasn’t anticipating your return Mr.–“ he said, searching for Rip’s name.

“Hunter.”

“Mr. Hunter. I thought you and your partner would have been able to get everything you needed from Bob.” Rip could hear the strain of him pitching his voice lower, cracking at the end of his sentence with the effort. “Speaking of, where is that old guy you were with yesterday?”

“Mr. Stein had other business to attend to in town.”

“Right.” Jim’s eyes narrowed, suddenly very skeptical. “And who is she?” he asked, pointing past Rip to Sara, who was scuffing her boots in the dust near the stable.

“I just keep him out of trouble,” Sara shouted, finger pointing at Rip. “He needs all the help he can get.”

Jim could barely contain his snickering.

Rip sighed and ignored her. “The postal service pays me to do my due diligence, so I just have a few loose ends to tie up. Promise it will not take too much of your time.”

“Alright. I gotta finish up here though,” Jim said, gesturing his hammer at the horse’s hoof.

“Of course. Does he have a name?” Rip asked, resting a hand on the horse’s flank.

“Officially, nah. The bosses just see them as company property. Probably have inventory numbers or something, but I’ve given them all nicknames. This is JJ,” Jim said as he hammered another nail in.

“JJ. That stand for anything?”

“It’s what we call my little brother back home. John’s his proper name, though.”

“Must be difficult, being away from them, your family, like this,” Rip said.

“I miss my brother quite a bit. He’s somethin’ else. A strange one.” The horse huffed and butted up against Jim, a fond gesture. Jim laughed and patted the horse on his side. “I don’t miss being stuck in Independence haggling with know-nothing idiots trying to make it out here, though.”

“I can imagine.”

“And my folks, they mean well. They’re good people, but...” Rip could see the wheels turning in Jim’s head, a deduction of how much to expose. “I just–I needed to see more than Independence if I could. Gettin’ this job was one of the few ways to do that.”

“I do understand that,” Rip said. Jim held his tongue, but clearly wanted to pry. “I crossed an ocean for the opportunity to make my own way. Coming here, traveling all over this country doing such an odd job. It has provided me a freedom I never thought I would have.”

It was close as Rip could come to saying that he understood, that he knew specifically what brought Jim out here. And even if he didn’t know the specifics, something softened in his face, the steel rod straightness of his spine relaxing, just a hair.

“Do you think you’ll return?” Rip asked. “To Independence?”

“I’m going to stick with the Pony as long as I can, and God willing that’s quite a while.”

Pounding the last nail into JJ’s hoof, Jim tossed the hammer onto a ramshackle cart and led the horse back to his stall. He wiped his hands on his jacket, and pulled out two hand rolled cigarettes from his pocket, offering one.

“Must be difficult to get these out here. You don’t see very many viable spots to grow tobacco,” Rip said, taking the cigarette and tucking it away in his jacket. Jim gave him a confused look. “I’d like to save it, perhaps for a time when I really need it.”

“I acquired a taste for it back home. Men would trade anything to get the price down on their supplies, and these helped me with the more unbearable parts of doing business with family,” Jim said with a grin, lighting a match and taking a deep inhale. “These are the one vice I spend my wages on. Most everything else goes back home.”

They sat in silence for a long minute, Jim taking drags, Rip gazing out into the haze of the afternoon heat at the dozens of men, barely visible in the distance, working to erect the poles and string the wire that would make Jim’s job obsolete by fall.

“Have you considered the telegraph?” Rip eventually said.

Jim seemed thoroughly perplexed. “I mean, I suppose. The men working on it are tough as nails, and I consider not crossing them,” he said.

“No, no. I meant, have you considered working for it? Instead of the Pony.”

It was hard to decipher what might have been going through Jim’s mind. But more likely than not, at the very least he thought Rip was crazy.

“Shouldn’t you be convincing me in the power of the post?” Jim flicked ash onto the ground and took one last drag before the paper singed his fingers. “What kinda inspector are you?” he asked, clearly seeing through the thin facade Rip had created.

“I’m not above shirking my loyalties, Mr. Reynolds.” Rip pointed out towards the men working under a hot sun. “The telegraph is coming whether any of us like it or not. While my position is almost certainly secure, yours is significantly less so. You seem like a bright young man. You should head to California, and learn how it works.”

Jim tilted his head and gave Rip a look he couldn’t decipher. It seemed equal parts that he thought Rip was insane and something that felt like recognition. Of what, Rip wasn’t totally sure.

“You only just met me Mr. Hunter. Not that I won’t take the flattery, but what makes you think I’m so bright?”

“You’re articulate, you at the very least have a business understanding from your family’s store. But perhaps it’s simply an older man’s desire to see himself in the young,” Rip said, removing his hat and using it to gesture with. “In my brief time chatting with you, I get the sense you could be meant for greater things. Seize the opportunity while you can, don’t let yourself become obsolete for this brief thrill of adventure.”

Before Jim could answer, the sound of galloping hooves rapidly closed in, and within seconds a rider had stopped, leapt off his horse, and handed the mail pouches to Jim.

“I’m sorry, I have to head off,” Jim said, extending his hand. “But thank you, it was a pleasure, Mr. Hunter. Hope you enjoy that cigarette.”

Rip took it to shake. “The pleasure was mine, Jim. And I certainly will.”

Jim slung the pouches over JJ’s saddle, hopped up after, and raced off into the desert. Rip followed into the street, watching Jim shrink into the distance, knowing there wasn’t anything else he could do.

He leaned against the side of the station, seeking a little shade from the late day sun under its puny awning and ignoring the sideways glance from the rider who had just disembarked. There hadn’t been any gunfire or explosions, no cartoon-esque runs down the street, Rip was impressed his team had managed to keep their trouble to a minimum thus far.

But then he knew that merely thinking that thought had cursed it. So he sighed and leaned his full weight against the wall, the cigarette Jim gave him weighing heavily in his breast pocket.

Miranda and his mother had banded together to make him quit years ago, guilting him with Jonas’ imminent birth. It had been a nightmarish process, but he knew that it was for the best. He gave in to the temptation once, after Savage destroyed his life, but Gideon scolded him gently, with compassion, refusing to let him pick up the habit once more. In the end, he was grateful for it.

But it had been a long couple of days, and he couldn’t bring Jim with him, and the legends were almost certainly about to run them out of town again, so even though he knew it was a bad idea, and he could feel his mother giving him a stern talking to from across time and space, he just really wanted that fucking cigarette. Striking a match against the siding of the station, he lit it and took a deep drag.

“Seriously? That’s fucking gross,” Sara said, making a face as she joined him. “I was going to kiss you, but not anymore buddy.”

Rip inhaled again, relaxing him almost instantly. The smoke burned his lungs, a familiar irritation, an old friend punching him warmly in the chest. “I can live with that for now.”

Sara scoffed. “Your loss.” Leaning against him, she pressed her lips to his cheek regardless. “Hey, you okay?” she asked, bumping gently against his shoulder.

“I am,” he said. Sara’s stern look quickly told him she wasn’t buying it. He took another drag, she exaggerated her disgust. “Fine. When we first worked together, Jonah introduced me to some boys he worked with in the war. You know, like me. Like Jim.”

“Boys? Like plural?” Sara said in disbelief.

“I mean, it wasn’t a whole brigade, but it was a couple. I told you, it was more common in this era than people typically think.”

“Not saying it as, like, a bad thing. It’s just, you wouldn’t expect it.”

“No, I know,” Rip said, shaking his head. He flicked ash, stared at it as it floated to the ground. “The ones who rode along with Jonah, they at least had him to watch out for them. And Mr. Hex, for his many flaws, was at least understanding, in his way. But Jim, he’s out here by himself. I did what I could, but–“

“I’m sorry you can’t bring him along.”

“Thank you.” Rip took a last drag, and tried to stifle the cough building in his chest. “He’ll be fine. I just–“

“Wish it was more than fine. Yeah, I know. We all know.”

Sara tipped her hat off and switched it with Rip’s. “There, now at least you look cool.”

The grin that Rip felt forming was a new kind of familiar, one that Sara was slowly teaching him. And it felt good.

“Alright, well, let’s get a drink before Mr. Rory decides to torch the place,” Rip said, tucking an arm across Sara’s shoulders before stopping dead in his tracks. “Dear lord. I’ve spent far too much time around you all.”

“Don’t think about it too hard, Rip. Embrace the chaos.”

Rip laughed through his groan and let Sara lead the way to the saloon.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a tattoo of a Pony Express rider, and it is a weird quirk of American history that is very dear to me, and pretty much every fact in here is historically correct, except for Bob Haslam's route. I believe he was riding closer to California. 
> 
> As far as scholarship knows, there weren't any trans men or cross dressers on the express, but it is not an impossibility! I did not put lies in Rip's mouth when he said it was more common than people think. There is actually very little formal scholarship on the Express (the last book was written in the early 2000s, and I think the one before that was from the 50s or 60s), but there is an increasing body of work about gender and its fluidity during the colonization of the American West. And that is a thing I care very very deeply about, and is the primary reason this fic took me so fucking long to write!
> 
> If this is something you're interested in, I seriously suggest checking out the work of Peter Boag, specifically his article "Go West Young Man, Go East Young Woman: Searching For the Trans in Western Gender History" and his most recent book, Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past.
> 
> Also, I have A LOT of feelings about this, so if you too have feelings about trans people in history, please come yell with me over on [tumblr.](http://angrypedestrian.tumblr.com)


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